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Save Aleppo: Caritas Syria staff report from the city

Media Image Credits:

Caritas Syria

Event date:

05 May 2016

The battle for the Syrian city of Aleppo has left hundreds of people dead or injured. There have been over 2,300 mortars between 23 April and 3 May. Fighting is putting at risk a fragile ceasefire in a country suffering five years of war.

Joseph, a Caritas Syria employee in Aleppo, sent this report:

What is happening? Where is my father? Where are my children? Where are you?

For more than 10 days, we the people of Aleppo have been asking these questions. Mortars fall in every neighbourhood. Areas with schools and universities have not been spared. Even parts of town with hospitals such as Al-Dabit Hospital, one of the best in the country, and Al-Razi public hospital, which gives all medical services for free, are threatened.

The people are afraid. We’re just waiting our turn for who will be hurt next. We’re just asking God how many hours we have left to live. People go to work as usual, but they don’t know if they’ll ever see their families again. Students continue to go to school despite the shrapnel, because life must go on. More people are leaving behind the their destroyed houses to find safety in other cities.

Some Caritas staff members in Aleppo have seen their homes damaged. Reem Baladi, receptionist in our Aleppo office, and Ms. Rana Kreit, a lawyer in our rent project, both have had their houses completely destroyed.

Our work continues. We can no longer visit the victims in their homes and in hospitals because of the shelling but we’re still collecting information about their needs and hope to help them in the coming days.

Medicine is still available in all the hospitals and pharmacies. There is electricity for about 2 hours a day. Drinking water relies on the pumping machines at Suleiman Alhalabi Station, which cannot work without electricity. The government has been sending the fuel to the station to keep these machines pumping the water to the city.

We need from the whole world to stand up with us to stop this war. We want to live in peace.